from DEEPSTEP COME SHINING

Oncet after a heavy rain
he come back at daybreak
threw down a few dollars and cents
alongside a set of pretty glass eyes
into a little dish on the dresser
flopped crosswise on the bed and slept
I started to write I feel lost here
and I’m going to go home Oncet
I clave to him like fog but the bus
at Dahlonega wasn’t waiting for me
to go through the old lucubrations
and Brother Veal of Deepstep nor was I

First the light sinks to shadows. The shadows become flooded with broad washes of dark. Watch. As the dark comes entirely into its own. Watch. The light being eaten. Devoured. Sonorous certainty of the dark. What sets the hangers in a closet singing in unison. The light murdered, that the truth become apparent.

Early every evening she sits on the steps of her trailer. The dirt yard raked. Caterpillar fording the furrows. Mercy, Louise. If it wasn’t hot hot hot. Cornlight. Eyes drink the color and are refreshed. Images seen but not interpreted. Thanks to her lovely twin trees the water she drew was cool. Cool the water she drank from the pump.

Blur in. Blur out. Just a hypothetical blind woman brought out of completest dark. Looking at a face. She will know if it belongs to Paddycake if Paddycake laughs. Counting trees by the shadow of their trunk. Looking at something blue. That’s the river. Something green. That’s the grass. Something else blue. That’s sky. Stood mutely in front of a lone tree. Sees only the spaces in between. That’s the tree with the lights in it. Tuck your shirt-tail in. Now this. Is my very own hand. I always did have a spidery hand. After the iridectomy she fell to the ground under the power

The box woods that lined the road
were walking with her

She could touch the willow wands on the other side of Little
Lynches River

She smudged the passage she had once felt

She was fearful of putting a morsel of cake
in her mouth

She thought it too large to enter in

A pool of shade appeared bottomless
The contours of a man were horrible to her
Those of the family dog were bearable

A pool of shade appeared bottomless

After the iridectomy
the slow recognition of forms

A shirt on the floor looked like
the mouth of a well

Spots on a horse
horrible holes in its side

The sun in the tree
green hill of crystals

Moon over Milledgeville
only a story

Saucer of light on the wall
the hand of god

When the aim is to feel wholeness itself. She laid her hand on the deeply furrowed bark, groping for the area of darkest color. The trunks would be painted with a palette. Solids would develop from the center outwards. Avoiding any kind of line. The body pressed against the trunk until she were certain of being extinguished by the darkness. One achieves a concealed drawing. Which is most like night.

Private-party love. By one sixty-watt bulb. And it be blue. The cool produces an halation. The couple standing underneath stir the floor as one. Some modelling on the side of the face. When directly below the bulb. All other detail dropped out. The eye gradually grows accustomed to this. The music circling. Huge and dark. Eroico furore. Supremely insane. Accelerated arpeggios. Unchain a cruel streak. Breath. Nerve. Mind. Pain. Teeming tonal centres. D-state. Nocturnal emission o f sperm. Corner of Hamlet and Bridges. And in the last year. They say he did. See angels. A synergism of cancer and dwelling in musical extremis.

Branches drop without warning. Clouds accumulate around a kind of idea akin to sonic weight. Progressive darkness. 250 miles off-shore with winds at 105 mph, Bertha turns inland. Multitudes of windows crossed with masking tape. Evacuation mandatory in the low-lying areas. Contrasts annihilated. Concealing loneliness and fear. As when the lens opening is too small. Taken too late. Or too early. Uncharacteristic silence loading the car. Worry over maundering. Hunger over worry. Tranquilized with a private jukebox in formica light. Endless refills. Pigs-in-the-blanket-and-grits-on-the-side time. Beats the bejesus out o f Bertha’s maw. Now do you know where you are. My over-air-conditioned-and-caffeinated love.

The scrape of chairs on a stone floor. A sack of birds escaped in the house. Fleshy, velvety dampness. Panic. Time lapse. Silence. That they think only of sight while they chew. Slowly the hand unwraps the bandages. Until the night shuts like a door. And the light slams from his face. Interrupting the flow of stimuli. It is all whiteness he says even this sightlessness.

Don’t touch that dial. Here’s the rest of the story: These three ladies they had been into all manner of wrongdoing. They were wearing the evil one’s varsity jacket. They were hot for god and they were on fire. That night they were thrown to the ground under the power. That night the glory cloud filled the church. The prayer line stayed open that night. A real hard light, sharp, cold as a nail, split right through the boards. Angels went to banging around in the rafters like barn swallows. We’ll pick up at the next chapter, dearly beloveds. . . .

Look for a clear object (Case #33)

Don’t need a magnifying glass

To make the feelings seen

Softly unwrap bandages

Unlike paper torn off a wall

Place yourself inside the damage

Lights approaching top speed

Blur in, blur out

A need for linear relief

Everything going awful fast

Trees agitated by wind

Keep the setting simple

A bowl of sugar on a table

Separated by a chair

Not an inkling what it means

Urge to withdraw

Pull the ladder up after

We can’t send this message no positive way
hallelujah glory to ya they call it the hump
day if you can get over the hump you’ve got it
made position yourself to hear
somewhere around the 14th verse we need
an elevator to help us look in the present
to help us visualize the future thank you
for your call can’t you see not of this
world who has no way somebody say what is
a leader who knows the way goes the way
shows the way just in case
somebody doesn’t know what I ’m talking
about the commission to be a friend
to the lost people this goes out to the air
the sweet barbecue of night I want to
magnify praise is the gate to enter in
sit down I said please sit down the more
you praise the clearer the mind becomes I said I
love you I adore you I called didn’t I praise is
the gate to enter in we need an elevator to
take our lost friends up to the auditorium
of light didn’t I call O world world world
I but stumbled when I saw praise is the gate
to enter plenty of parking come early
to get a good seat